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Exploring the Meanings of Community Multimedia Centers in Mozambique: A Social Representation Perspective

Exploring the Meanings of Community Multimedia Centers in Mozambique: A Social Representation Perspectiveby Isabella Rega, Sara Vannini, Emanuele Fino, Lorenzo CantoniInformation Technologies & International DevelopmentVol 9, Issue 4 Winter 2013 AbstractThis article presents extensive research conducted in Mozambique that aims to deeply understand how different social groups understand community multimedia centers (CMCs), which are structures combining a community radio and a telecenter. The social representations theory was adopted to interpret narratives of 231 interviewees from 10 Mozambican provinces. Interviewees included representatives of initiating agencies, local staff members, CMC users (both the radio and telecenter components), users of only the community radio, and community members not using the CMCs. Following the analysis of transcribed interviews, six main clusters were identified, each of them shedding light on a specific understanding of a CMC. These are discussed according to a set of sociodemographic variables. This study suggests that the social representations theory is a valuable framework to provide an integrated view of ICT4D interventions by giving a voice to local perspectives without overlooking the initiating agencies’ expectations.

Informazioni personali

Lorenzo Cantoni graduated in Philosophy and holds a PhD in Education and Linguistics. L. Cantoni is full professor at USI - Università della Svizzera italiana (Lugano - Switzerland), Faculty of Communication Sciences, where he served as Dean of the Faculty in the academic years 2010-2014. He is currently director of the Institute for Communication Technologies and scientific director of the laboratories webatelier.net, NewMinE Lab: New Media in Education Lab, and eLab: eLearning Lab. L. Cantoni is chair-holder of the UNESCO chair in ICT to develop and promote sustainable tourism in World Heritage Sites, established at USI, and president of IFITT - International Federation for Information Technologies in Travel and Tourism.His research interests are where communication, education and new media overlap, ranging from computer mediated communication to usability, from eLearning to eTourism, and from ICT4D to eGovernment. Lorenzo Cantoni is research professor at the Center for International Health Services Research & Policy, in the Washington State University and has collaborated/collaborates with Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Politecnico di Milano, and University of the Holy Cross (Rome, Italy). In the years 2003-2008 L. Cantoni has been President of the I.Re.F. - Lombardy Region Institute for Education and Training of Public Administration, the largest Italian regional public administration school.